Why Can I Work Europe but Not the Next State Over?
Propagation · Answered
Why Can I Work Europe but Not the Next State Over?
Short answer: the skip zone. On bands like 20 meters, your signal climbs to the ionosphere and comes back to earth a thousand miles or more away. Everything closer sits in the quiet gap the signal jumped over — so a station in France can be easier than one two states away.
How the jump works
HF signals travel two ways. The ground wave hugs the surface and fades within a short distance. The sky wave leaves at an angle, bends back from the ionosphere, and lands far away — then can bounce again. Between where the ground wave dies and where the sky wave lands is the skip zone. The higher the band and the lower the angle, the longer the jump.
Why a good vertical widens the gap
A vertical sends most of its energy out at low angles, toward the horizon. Low angles make long hops. That is exactly what a DX antenna should do — and it is why a vertical owner often hears Europe, Asia, and South America before the neighboring states. One owner this summer logged 400 FT8 contacts from a 20-foot Greyline flagpole at 50 watts, including Franz Josef Land, Chile, and Cameroon, and put it perfectly: “It's easier to work France than it is Indiana on 20M.”
Working the close ones
Go lower in frequency. On 40 and 80 meters the skip distance shrinks, and nearby states come in, especially in the evening. For contacts a few hundred miles away, those bands are the tool; for the far side of the world, the higher bands and low angles are.
Go Deeper
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K1LDO: walked it up alone, then worked Franz Josef Land
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Jon Kimball, KL2A · Greyline Performance · 435-200-4902